The Apple Pro RAID card didn't accept the OCZ Vertex SSDs installed in the factory bays. SSDs, as expected, are faster than the 15K SAS HDDs. Connected to eight 15K SAS drives in previous tests, it peaked at 1200MB/s.Ģ. The RocketRAID 4320 (and sister 4322) is a powerful RAID card. The Apple Pro RAID card was also beat on small random transfers with the exception of the low end RocketRAID 2680. It's not that the 2009 Apple Pro RAID card for the Nehalem Mac Pro isn't a quality crafted host adapter, but for $700 I expect it to exceed 553MB/s with four very fast drives in RAID 0 mode.Īll three HighPoint RocketRAID host adapters we tested handled large sustained transfers faster than the Apple Pro RAID card. We were able to demonstrate an inconvenient truth: The Apple Pro RAID card is not as fast as the alternatives. R2680 SAS = HighPoint RocketRAID 2680 in 4x (Slot 4) connected to Four Seagate Cheetah 15K.6 SAS HDDs (450G) in a RAID 0 set (with the help of the Backplane Attachment)ġ. R4320 SAS a = HighPoint RocketRAID 4320 in 4x (Slot 4) connected to Four Seagate Cheetah 15K.6 SAS HDDs (450G) in a RAID 0 set (with the help of the Backplane Attachment) - Also ran with three drive setĪpple Pro SAS = 2009 Apple Pro RAID card in 4x (Slot 4) connected to Four Seagate Cheetah 15K.6 SAS HDDs (450G) in a RAID 0 set - also ran with three drive set R4320 SAS b = HighPoint RocketRAID 4320 in 8x (Slot 2) connected to Four Seagate Cheetah 15K.6 SAS HDDs (450G) in a RAID 0 set (with the help of the Backplane Attachment) R3510 SSD = HighPoint RocketRAID 3510 in 8x (slot 2) connected to Four OCZ Vertex 120G SSDs ( OCZSSD2-1VTX120G ) in a RAID 0 set (with the help of the MaxUpgrades Backplane Attachment) RED bar indicates fastest performer for a given test We average 5 runs.ĭiskTester's "run-random" test measures how many 4K transfers can be made per second in random locations across the whole volume. QuickBench has a Random Standard Test that uses small blocks (from 4K to 1024K) to measure random transfer rate.
Note that at 90% capacity, some storage solutions slow down considerably while others remain at the same speed. (Test size = 4GB, Chunk size = 256M, Iterations = 5) We used the DiskTester 2.0 "area test" to measure the transfer speed when the volume was empty and at filled to 90% capacity. MaxUpgrades calls the kit the "SAS/SATA Backplane Attachment." (See bottom of this article for more info and photos.)
We used it to test three different versions of HighPoint RocketRAID SAS and/or SATA host adapter with both SSDs and SAS HDDs mounted in the internal Mac Pro Nehalem drive bays. MaxUpgrades has come up with a "bypass" solution that makes it possible to connect third party internal RAID adapters to the internal drive bays. Cool technology but it effectively locked out the use of third party SAS and SATA host adapters with internal mini-SAS or SATA ports - until now. The 2009 Apple Pro RAID card for the Nehalem Mac Pro is ingeniously designed to trigger takeover of the four internal drive bays without the use of a mini-SAS cable connection. Posted Monday, June 15th, 2009, by rob-ART morgan, mad scientist
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